SW 6402 - Mental Health Practice II: Adults and Aging

This course is the second of a sequence of two required practice courses taken by all students in the Mental Health Domain of the second year of the MSW program. This second class, taught in the Spring of the second MSW year, provides knowledge, skills, and a value base for Social Work practice with adults and the aging in their families and communities. The first class, taught in the Fall of the second MSW year focused upon Social Work practice with children and adolescents. In this course, students concentrate their studies on the assessment and promotion of mental health for adults and the aging in the context of their families, institutions, and local and global communities. Students will learn to assess the common mental disorders of adults and the aging from an ecological (biopsychosocial-spiritual-environmental) perspective and to select intervention strategies that differentially fit the needs identified in those assessments. Clients will be viewed as typically having multiple-problem challenges (e.g., in mental health, school learning, physical health, substance abuse, family environment, etc.) that are best approached by multi-disciplinary teams of professionals and other community members. Students will learn to develop and utilize their conscious-use-of-self in establishing effective helping relationships.